eBay has announced that they have been served notice by PayPal at their Dundalk facility in Co Louth. At the time of the split of PayPal and eBay in July 2015, PayPal took over the lease of the building they jointly occupied. Now, as PayPal seeks to expand, they’ve served notice on eBay and they will leave the building in the second quarter of 2017.
eBay say in a statement: “We confirm that PayPal has served us notice as tenants of their Dundalk facility. We will begin a formal consultation process with our colleagues in Dundalk and will share any further information with them as a matter of priority.”
PayPal said: “Our operations will expand and move into the office space vacated by eBay.”
Apparently all eBay staff at the Dundalk office were informed today but there have been rumours for some weeks.
It has been reported in the Irish Press that work is underway to find a new premises in Dundalk for eBay and also that the a new operation could be opened right across the country in Co Sligo.
Declan Breathnach, TD (Irish MP) for Louth, said: “There was a series of rumours doing the rounds in recent months that eBay would seek to close its operation in Dundalk, and unfortunately this rumour has now been confirmed by management at the company. It’s simply unacceptable that the workers have had to put up with these rumours for months without any clarification being provided by management.”
Obviously the personal uncertainty for eBay staff at this time will be causing anxiety. But what might this mean to sellers and customer support provision? There are no answers here at the moment. We’ll see what emerges over the weeks and months to come.
It’s also a useful reminder that eBay and PayPal are now totally separate companies and looking after their own interests first and foremost. The gloves are off.
14 Responses
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Bearing in mind all the ‘rumours’, this is not a surprise to eBay. I have seen other articles where it has been said that eBay are seeking alternative premises.
I am sure that eBay will sort it out. On the other hand they may be seeking ‘government deals’ to stay (in ROI). At which point I have to say that eBay should base staff where their business is ….
And that would not necessarily be in ROI (or for that matter Manila).
Well at least this explains the change to shop support message last week and the fact that now getting through to eBay on the phone is just about impossible 2 hour wait yesterday with silly music and a daft voice before I gave up trying.
Just rang again this morning at 25 mins and still waiting eBay phone support is a joke now.
I feel for the employees who will more than likely be out of a job soon
Sorry guys, must just be paypals “opinion”. The only thing you can do in this situation is to reach out to Paypal and try to resolve their issues. Unfortunately it’s against policy to help you out.
Nobody should be surprised. After all 2 companies sharing the same facilities and certainly as far as Paypal is concerned still expanding. Obviously they will be looking to expand within a facility that they have the lease on. The other alternative would have been for Paypal to move out into another probably larger facility.
As for ebay. No doubt there have been long term negotiations between ebay and Paypal as to the future. These discussions were intended to be confidential but as is normal rumours spread.
I can remember years ago when I worked in Industry we were selling one of our premises to another company. I had to go into and work in that building and I was under strict orders not to say a word about the sale even though I knew most of the details. The ‘Secret’ came out of the bag when the purchaser sent in a team to measure up including measuring up for New Curtains. From that moment it did not matter what I said and all the rumours ended.
We too have suddenly started having problems getting through to customer support. We are supposed to get through to eBay “top customer care” but the phone message has now changed. After an hour waiting on the phone on Monday, I requested a call back and it has yet to materialise – and after reading some of the stories on the other forums I think that if I did get to speak to someone I’d be wasting my time anyway.
Worrying for staff but I’m sure lots of IDA money is being thrown at eBay and a suitable premises/solution will be found. Meanwhile Paypal are creating lots of new jobs.
Typical multi national treatment of workers. You are just a number. Irish Gov might have to open the purse strings to keep the jobs. More than likely they will be outsourced.
Service has always from a sellers point of view been dreadful from eBay.
Some of the workers from eBay should find work from PayPal.
These two SHOULD still have some sort of communication from purely a security point of view.
I think the writing is on the wall with the announcement for support on the shop subscriptions I think eBay have decided what they are doing and I don’t think it involves the workers in Ireland I hope I am wrong for the sake of their jobs but I don’t think so
i have never understood why ebay sold paypal , this was there silent money maker , paypal is so trusted worldwide and simple to use compared with all the fraud on western union etc companies , paypal could and should be bigger than ebay in terms of revenue
Its a bit of a loss to ebay as i know some people that worked in the Dundalk facility in areas like click and collect. The good news for employees is that they should be able to find alternative roles at Paypal as they are hiring quite a few people at the moment.
You would usually get phone support from contacts in Dublin though, rarely would it have been Dundalk in my experience when the phones actually worked.
Dundalk’s also not too short on office space with Ebay/Paypal using the old building Xerox occupied many moons ago